Again
by comfeighchair
Summary: Three years after Sherlock's death, John is struggling to cope in the everyday world. His life has become safe, boring. That doesn't mean it has to stay so.


And the man is at the edge of the roof and John is screaming for him and the man smiles and tosses his phone aside and jumps or falls or flies and John is running and a bike plows into his side and he cries on the pavement and somehow he is running again and thrashing he fights his way through the crowd and there is the broken and bloodied body of his best friend.

Friend.

My best friend, Sherlock Holmes, is dead.

John jolts awake. He is panting, covered in sweat. He would not be surprised to find that he has been screaming. But no, Mary is still asleep beside him. He looks over at the clock. 4:30. There is no chance of him falling back asleep, possibly not again for days.

John drags himself out of bed. Shivering slightly, he throws on a dressing gown before slinking out of the room. He turns down the hallway, pushes open the last door on the right. Turns on the light. Crosses the room. Already, the baby is stirring. He picks her up, holds her close to him. Together, they go into the kitchen. John warms a bottle, the baby drinks. When she is finished, she just lies there, warm against John's chest.

He hears the dull thump of the newspaper hitting the front door. He stands up, makes his way to the front of the house, pushes open the door. The chill morning air hits him as he bends to collect the paper.

At 5:20, Mary enters the kitchen. She is unsurprised to find her husband there. As long as she's known him, he's had trouble sleeping, almost certainly related to the various traumatizing events in his past. In the past sixth months, since the baby was born, he has seemed to do a little better. He clings to his daughter like a drowning man to a beam of driftwood. Slowly, she has begun to make him human again, where all of Mary's best efforts seemed futile. She has tried, oh she has tried. She loves John, and knows that he is a good man. She wants him to be whole again.

Mary starts another shift at the hospital today. She has two major operations scheduled, as well as emergency service. She will not be home this evening. John, on the other hand, has a very minimal work schedule. His patients make appointments, and he has none today. Mary suggests that he and the baby go out, enjoy the fresh air. They could visit Molly, she'd love to see them again. (Molly and Mary have become close friends, opposites who have pulled together like magnets.) John says that maybe he will visit Molly, and Mary kisses him goodbye and leaves for work.

John jumps when the toaster goes off. He cannot remember starting it. But he butters the bread and eats it. It's rather dry. He sips a cup of coffee (black) and goes to dress to go out. By the time he leaves the house, it is 7:45. From his quiet residential street, he finds his way into the noisy blur that is London. He pushes through crowds, carefully guarding the baby from the throng of pushing bodies with his own. He makes his way to Barts. Doesn't want to go to the morgue, so he goes into the lab instead.

This lab. Where he first met Sherlock.

Iraq or Afghanistan?

And just like on that day, that day which both made John and began his destruction, Molly enters with coffee.

Molly is, as usual, seemingly thrilled to see John. She takes the baby from him, bounces her up and down, smiles at John.

"Someone here's been asking to meet you. Heard about you, I guess."

John looks up, surprised. "Me? Who would want to meet me?"

"Well, he usually gets here around now, I suppose you'll be able to see for yourself. Oooh," she turns to the baby, "someone needs a change. Do you have a fresh nappy, John?"

John hands her one, and Molly trots off to her office. (She has been promoted, she's got her own office now. Not a huge one, but quite nice.) John sighs and casts his eyes around the lab. Colored liquids bubble, and the lights on various machinery blink.

The door handle turns. John, surprised that Molly is back so quickly, looks up.

It is not Molly who sweeps through the door.

It is impossibility that enters.

Sherlock.

He can't be here.

John watched him die with his own eyes.

Sherlock seems surprised to see John, too. He stops in his tracks, stares for a moment. Removes a glove and reaches out a hand.

John does not take the hand. Cannot take the hand. Sherlock Holmes is dead. It's a trick. His memories haunting him again. A slow descent into insanity.

Molly re-enters the room. Her eyes flick between the two.

"You can see him, too?"

Molly jumps at John's question. And answers.

"Why wouldn't I be able to? He's real, you know."

This is impossible. John saw him die. You don't get a second chance after jumping off a building.

But at the same time, this stranger who claims to be Sherlock is there and breathing and staring at John with his hand still outstretched.

Descending into a happy insanity is better than a miserable reality, isn't it?

John reaches out as well. Takes the man's hand.

It is warm and real, blood coursing through the veins beneath the skin.

John Watson is not okay. He is still struggling with the blows that life has dealt him. He still wakes at night screaming.

But maybe, someday, the scars will heal. John Watson is not okay, but someday, he will be.


End file.
